During the 4th and 5th of April the C20 Face-to-face meeting took place. There the eight working groups met in order to advance in the preparation of policy documents that will be delivered to the G20.
Within the activities planned by the Civil Affinity Group 20, the eight Working Groups (Anticorruption; Architecture of the International Financial System; Education; Employment and Inclusion; Environment, Climate and Energy; Gender; Investment and Infrastructure; Local2Global and Global Health) they met to strengthen and work in person on the objectives that began to be discussed in February in the forum of the official page of C20.
The conferences, held at the Palacio San Martin, were inaugurated by the Co-Chair Guillermo Correa; and the Sherpa, Ambassador Pedro Villagra Delgado, who emphasized in his speech the challenges that G20 has in Argentina. Also, after the welcome speeches work started with a brief round of questions from the representatives of the civil society to the track of Sherpas and Finance of G20.
Being the first time that Argentina presides the G20, this meeting was an unique opportunity for the organizations of our country that wanted to start participating and get involved to be part of this G20 Affinity Group. Reflection of this was the registration of more than 100 participants of argentinian organizations, who showed their intention to incorporate on the C20 and participate in a world-wide event. They were joined by representatives of organizations from countries, who contributed with their experience and valuable contributions having participated on this kind of process. Result of this was the work that during two days 150 representatives of OSC from around the world did together.
The singularity of the Face to face meeting was the presentation of the Working Group Local2Global. This group aims to create an space for debate on the enabling environment of Social Organizations around the world, seeking to strengthen the environment of action and influence in the context in which they operate. In addition, it seeks to generate greater knowledge and participation of the Social Organizations in the mechanism of participation and defense of G20; democratize the access to this kind of key places for incidence of public policies and strengthen the OSC from around the world in order to achieve a continuous participation in the next summits of G20.
Both days were made up of plenary sessions and parallel meetings that enriched the joint participation between the members of the different groups of work of C20, also they generated specialized spaces of work to elaborate documents that will be delivered to G20.
The plenary sessions counted with the presence of specialists like Delia Ferreira Rubio (Transparency International Cahir), Inés Pousadela (CIVICUS), Hideki Wakabayashi (representative of the Civil Society of Japan, where the G20 2019 will be performed), Cora Steinberg (Education Coordinator of UNICEF), among others.
On the other hand, the parallel meetings counted with the presence of representatives of the Argentinian G20 commission, who shared the mainstream topics on the government’s agenda to be treated on G20 summits.
From the government they also attended the vice Chancellor Daniel Raimondi, and the Minister of Finance of the Nation Nicolás Dujovne, who were the responsible for concluding the first journal. On their speeches, both appreciated the presence and work of every assistant during the Face to Face Meeting. Also they highlighted the importance for Argentina to count with the presidency of G20, in what international insertion for the country means.
The next steps to follow will be the Summit of C20, to be celebrated on August the 6 and 7. There will be presented the C20 official release to be delivered to G20.
For more information about the group go to https://civil-20.org/